


Toy Soldiers

by Fyre



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bath Sex, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 04:31:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1765570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, two boys from Brooklyn fall back on old habits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Toy Soldiers

**Author's Note:**

> I was prompted this by Gepardo: Steve finds Bucky, but the man stinks of high heaven. Bath time shenanigans?

He was hurt, half-conscious, when Steve dragged him out from the rubble of the last Hydra facility.

"Buck..."

The metal hand shoved at Steve's shoulder, pushing him back, and Steve's heart sank. He stepped back, raising his hands, submissive, passive, not an enemy.

"Don't wanna get your shiny uniform dirty, Cap." He didn't sound like Bucky anymore, his voice rasping with disuse, hoarse. He looked up at Steve through tangled, matted, filthy hair. Then like a miracle, one side of his mouth turned up. "Not when you look so pretty."

Steve was on his knees beside him in a second, hands at his shoulders. "You always said I wasn't the pretty one," he said, hesitating before cupping Bucky's cheek, searching his face. There was blood dried from temple to jaw, but Bucky's eyes were fixed on Steve's face, too focussed. Bucky was always so easily distracted, but this new Bucky, pulled back from the broken pieces, was focussed.

"Nah," Bucky words in the Winter Soldier's voice were jarring. "The dumb one." His head rocked back against the rubble. "Am I done, Cap? Can I stand down?"

Steve could only nod, slipping his arm under Bucky's, around his back, as he had decades before, helping him to his feet.

"I thought you were dead," he confided.

He felt Bucky's chuckle against his arm, and the way his friend's body tensed with pain. "I thought you were smaller," he replied in that hoarse rasp.

Steve looked at him in surprise. “You remember?”

Bucky’s eyes were on the ground as they struggled towards the jeep Steve had commandeered from Hill. “Enough,” he said. His voice was quieter now, and he was walking more slowly, the weight of his body on Steve’s shoulder growing by the moment. They were still a dozen paces away when Steve gave up all pretence of letting Bucky be the tough guy and swung him up in his arms.

Bucky’s right arm tightened around his shoulder, broader and stronger and capable of snapping a man’s neck.

“What am I?” he whispered, his head lolling against Steve’s shoulder. “Your fucking princess?”

“Yeah,” Steve retorted. “If you’re the pretty one, we’ll pick out a nice dress and a crown.”

Bucky’s chuckle trailed off in a weary breath, hot against Steve’s neck, and he was quiet. 

The back of the jeep wasn’t exactly made for comfort, but Steve figured Bucky had slept in worse places. Still, he stripped his uniform down to his waist and peeled off his T-shirt to roll it up as a make-shift pillow for Bucky’s head to rest on. 

There was a motel nearby, cheap and low-rent. They didn’t bat an eyelid as Steve walked in from the jeep, chest bare, hands thick with dust and blood. That kind of place, he figured, and not a place to ask questions when he demanded a quiet room away from any other guests.

The last thing he needed was Bucky being disturbed.

The room was a dive. The wall paper was peeling and yellow at the top, smoke-stained and reeking of damp. But it was a room, and there was a bed and a bathroom, and until back-up could get there, and until Stark could send in a shuttle to pick them up, it would do.

Bucky was so out of it Steve slung him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, hauling his ass up the stairs. He was only just coming around when Steve set him down on the bed, and the smell in the room took on a sourer twist.

“What the hell have you been sleeping in, Buck?” Steve sighed, kneeling down in front of him.

Bucky braced both hands on the edge of the bed. “Whatever I could,” he replied. One side of his mouth turned up. “Going covert doesn’t mean going down the salon.” He lifted one hand, the warm, flesh, callused hand, and touched Steve’s cheek. “Look at you, pretty boy. All cleaned up like you’re getting married.”

“Fuck you, Bucky,” Steve said, but he couldn’t keep the smile from his face.

“Threat or promise?” The gravel in Bucky’s voice, the depth, the rasp, and the look in his eyes, made Steve’s stomach clench. God, it had been so long.

“What do you think?” he whispered.

Bucky’s hand was behind his head, those familiar long fingers spreading across the base of his skull, cradling as it had a thousand times before. Bucky was staring at him, not pushing him away, but not pulling him back. Bucky was always the one to make the first move back then, but this was another world, another time, and Steve leaned forward and closed the gap between them. 

Bucky was the one who broke back from the kiss, his fingers’s tense against the back of Steve’s neck.

“Like you remembered?” Steve said, searching his face.

Bucky nodded, knocking his forehead against Steve’s. “You?”

“Mm.” Steve’s arms were resting on Bucky’s thighs. “But you stink and your mouth tastes like something died in it.”

Blue eyes glinted with a malevolence not unlike the Winter Soldier, and Bucky pulled him up hard, kissing him with a voraciousness that made him sock the son of a bitch in the side. Bucky smirked against his mouth.

“Worse?” he murmured.

Steve shoved a hand into Bucky’s face. “Much,” he said, but he felt like dancing. He got up, and offered Bucky a hand. “C’mon. I’ll get you cleaned up.”

Bucky’s hand closed around his. “Just cleaning,” he warned. “I don’t feel so great.”

Without hesitation, Steve stepped alongside him again and slid his arm around Bucky’s ribs. He could feel the chill of the metal arm over his shoulder, and the weight of Bucky leaning on him. “Only cleaning,” he said. “We’ve got company on the way.”

Bucky grunted, stumbling over his own feet.

Steve set him down on the lid of the toilet, and turned his attention to the bath. It wasn’t much, but it - unlike the rest of the room - was pristine. Maybe they’d just cleaned up the last crime scene that happened there. He didn’t really care as long as the water ran hot and clean.

The shower clattered and sputtered noisily, but not so much as a trickle came out.

“Damn it.”

“You got a bucket?”

Steve rolled his eyes. “They don’t even have a TV, Buck. Best we can do is bath.” He turned the faucet and let the bath start to fill up, then turned his attention back to Bucky, looking him over.

He was still wearing a lot of the same combat gear he’d worn when they fought, under army fatigues. The shirt on top was so tattered that Steve tore it off without a second thought. The harnesses and straps of the combat gear took longer. Bucky didn’t move, just sitting there, forearms resting on his thighs, his head lolling forward.

“You okay?” Steve murmured, fighting the urge to run his fingers through Bucky’s hair, tell him it would all be all right.

Bucky’s head moved slowly up and down. “Tired,” he confessed. “Didn’t realise how much.”

“No surprise,” Steve murmured, drawing one strap then another free. It was more like a harness than anything useful. Like the mask had muzzled him, the harness held him back. It rattled against his metal arm, then clattered on the floor. “Can you lift your arms?”

Bucky nodded slowly, raising his arms just enough for Steve to strip the scraps of his ruined vest off him. 

Steve knew Bucky. He’d known him his whole life. He knew every inch of him. But Hydra and the Russians had taken every inch of him and changed him into something else. His was harder, sharper, all angles and scars and mutilated into a killer. Steve couldn’t help staring at the point where metal met flesh, where scars were twisted like knots along the connection.

“That bad?” Bucky whispered.

Steve felt his face flush and turned his eyes back to Bucky’s. His friend didn’t look surprised, just resigned. Steve raised both his hands, one on each of Bucky’s shoulder as if they were the same. “They hurt you, Buck,” he said. “I didn’t stop it. They did this to you.”

Bucky’s fingertips touched Steve’s chest, spreading, until his palm was flush against Steve’s skin. “You too, buddy,” he murmured. He laughed faintly. “Look at us. The toy soldiers. All made up with no one to fight.”

“I figure we’ve earned a break,” Steve said quietly, his fingers moving gently along the twisted scars. They spread down over Bucky’s shoulder, across his back, like spokes from the centre of a wheel, metal ridges running from shoulder to spine. Bucky shivered. Steve drew his hand back. “Does it hurt?”

Bucky shook his head. “Feels… good,” he confided, his eyes dark as he looked up at Steve again. 

Steve wanted to kiss him again, lie to him that things would be fine, but he couldn’t give voice to the words, so he leaned closer and pressed his mouth to the point where metal and flesh were burned together. He felt Bucky’s breath catch, felt the metal hand at the back of his head, light, careful.

“Clean up,” Bucky rasped. “Time for that later.”

Steve nodded, kneeling back down and unlacing Bucky’s boots. “Don’t want to give Stark a free show.”

“Stark?” Bucky was still, tense as a wire.

“Tony,” Steve clarified. “Howard’s son.”

“Shit.”

Steve looked up from Bucky’s boot. “Buck?”

“D’you think he’ll mind helping the guy who killed his dad?” Bucky’s voice had taken on that flat, bleak tone again.

“That’s not you anymore,” Steve said, catching Bucky’s head between his hands. “You hear me, Barnes?”

Blue eyes stared at him, and Bucky’s hands were tight around his arms suddenly, gripping hard enough to bruise. “Tell me again,” he whispered.

“That’s not you,” Steve said, leaning closer to kiss him again. “You’re Bucky Barnes. You’re my friend. You’re not a toy soldier. I’m not a toy soldier. We’re Steve and Bucky, do you understand?” Bucky closed his eyes, breathing unsteadily, and nodded. “Good. Now stand up and take off your pants.”

The sound that escaped Bucky bordered on a helpless, broken giggle. “There’s the Steve I remember,” he said, struggling to his feet.

In the end, Steve had to help him out of his blood-stained and burned pants. There were scars on his legs too, and Steve had to make himself look away. It wasn’t the time to stare at the way thigh tensed and curved seamlessly into ass. It wasn’t the time to admire how the light caught on muscles Bucky hadn’t had before. 

Instead, he helped Bucky to the bath one step at a time, and helped him into it.

The profanities came in languages Steve didn’t even recognise, and Bucky beat his flesh hand against the side of the tub.

“Jesus Christ! That’s hot!”

Steve knelt down beside the tub and shoved his hand in the water. “The hell it is,” he said. “Here I thought you were the tough guy now.”

Bucky looked at him, then his eyes flicked down to Steve’s hand that was still beneath the water. He looked away, groping for the soap, but he didn’t say anything, just lifting his leg enough so it brushed against Steve’s hand.

Steve wasn’t one to turn down an invitation.

It was like a lifetime before, when Steve’s mom insisted they both clean up and dress up respectably for Church. She bathed before she went to work on the night shift and left them the tub in front of the fire.

Steve’s fingers traced the well-remembered path down the inside of Bucky’s thigh, his eyes on Bucky’s face. Bucky wasn’t even looking at him, twisting a regulation bar of soap between his hands, bubbles massing between his fingers. His breathing was slow and steady and Steve knew it would stay that way. It always did. 

He pressed his palm flat against Bucky’s thigh, sliding it slowly down.

Bucky inhaled slowly and exhaled. He set the soap to one side and started soaping his chest, staring straight ahead as if Steve’s hand wasn’t moving down between his legs. He kept his hands steady, moving in swirling bubbling trails on his arms and chest, until Steve closed his fingers and the water sloshed around Bucky’s waist as his whole body twitched.

“Easy, Buck,” Steve whispered.

Bucky sank back against the end of the bath. His hands were still moving, but it was spasmodically, and he slid lower in the water, soap clouding the water as Steve slowly and deliberately moved his hand.

The water was rippling and Bucky’s knees were peaks through the surface. His head was pressed back against the tiles, leaving dirt and bloodstains there, but Steve couldn’t care less about that. 

He was watching Bucky’s face, watching the tight lines carved into Bucky’s features tensing and softening by degrees, the way his eyes pressed closed and his lips parted in small, fluttering breaths, watching the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed, the way both hands were curling, fingertips dragging, leaving reddened trails on his pale scarred chest.

“God…” Bucky whispered, arching his neck back.

Steve rose on his knees by the edge of the tub, leaning over, and bent to press his mouth the scar running along Bucky’s shoulder. His lips drew back from his teeth and he scraped them along the bare skin. Bucky shuddered as if electrified, and his wet hand was in Steve’s hair.

“Again,” he panted.

Steve couldn’t refuse him.

His teeth closed on the flesh that tasted of soap and sweat and dirt and Bucky.

That was enough. Bucky’s grip was merciless on him, as his cock tightened in Steve’s hand. His breath was hot against Steve’s temple, irregular now, rapid little gusts.

“You okay?” Steve murmured, his mouth close to Bucky’s throat.

Bucky nodded, sinking further down the bath, his body limp in the water. “Next time,” he said breathlessly, “just shove me under the shower, okay?”

Steve smiled, drawing his hand back. “You’ll need to rinse down.”

Blue eyes looked back at him through matted, damp hair. “Well done, Captain States-The-Obvious,” Bucky grumbled, flicking water at him. Steve scooped a handful of water and dashed it at Bucky’s head, realising a split-second too late that it was probably a bad thing to do to a man who had spent seventy years as programmed assassin.

Ten minutes later, he was still trying to figure out how Bucky not only got him in the tub but ended up on top. But he wasn’t giving it too much thought, because Bucky was sprawled there with him, both of them soaking and filthy and wet and together again. 

“Your friends are probably coming,” Bucky murmured, his head tucked under Steve’s chin.

“Let them,” Steve replied just as quietly, scooping handfuls of water over Bucky’s hair and combing through the tangles with his fingers. 

Bucky’s right arm tightened over Steve’s middle “You don’t care what they see?” he asked in a small voice.

Steve gently turned Bucky’s face up to his. “No,” he said, and kissed him again.


End file.
